


55.5: Stupid Idea

by COBALT (nacaratskies)



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: 2000 words of warren Kepler having feelings and hating it., Brainwashing, Gen, Kepler Has Feelings, Mind Control, There are some others but they don’t have speaking roles, also being indecisive!! That too, and he hates it!!!, pretty easy to read as kepcobi if ya want but nothing explicit, thats it really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:13:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26150929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nacaratskies/pseuds/COBALT
Summary: He cannot disobey orders. He will not let Jacobi die. And so, not for the first time, Warren Kepler finds himself between a rock and a hard place.
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi & Warren Kepler, Daniel Jacobi & Warren Kepler & Alana Maxwell
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	55.5: Stupid Idea

**Author's Note:**

> I was digging around in my notes and found this thing I apparently wrote last year, so I polished it up and voila!! Enjoy!!

Warren leans against a box and watches the drones work on. He checks his watch. The minute hand ticks slowly past 06:00. The room is silent except for the sound of tightening bolts. The stump of his right hand aches dully.

Warren checks his watch again. 06:02. He leans heavier on the box and watches them work. There's Eiffel, there, and Minkowski, there. And... Jacobi, over there, barely visible behind a pile of sheeting.

Eiffel holds out a hand. Minkowski places a wrench into it. They carry on, not even looking at each other.

If Cutter was going to call him in the next half-day he'd have done it by now.

Or maybe not?

 _Don't second-guess yourself_ , he reminds himself, and files the thought away.

Warren shifts. He checks his watch again. He doesn't even recognize the time. He doesn't bother to check again.

What was it that she said? That the thrall would be permanent? That they would be brain dead? He remembers the conversation perfectly, but there's part of his brain that just can't process it. There is a logical inconsistency here.

He cannot disobey orders. He will not let Jacobi die. And so, not for the first time, Warren Kepler finds himself between a rock and a hard place.

There's dust, drifting in the air. The fluorescent lights don't scream anymore, Warren's too old for that now, but he can feel them hum. They give him a goddamn headache. The metal on the sides of the room shines. The faces of the drones are perfectly contented and they are utterly, completely silent. And Warren knows nobody will come to check on them for at least another forty-five minutes.

Jacobi's trembling, Warren notices. He's been working since 15:00 yesterday. His fingers are raw. His skin is pale and shiny with sweat, and he's shaking, drooping. He's also smiling. He's smiling so goddamn wide and there's nothing behind his eyes. He tightens another bolt. He lifts a sheet of metal. His fingers slip. He catches the sheet and, shaking, sets it down to the left. He picks up a screwdriver. His eyes are red and irritated. He fumbles his grip on the guide rail as he moves.

Pryce won't be back for a while.

What's the logical course of action here? He can't disobey orders. But he can't let Jacobi die. How could they get off this station? Warren’s starting to doubt he’ll ever see Earth again. 

"Mister Jacobi," Warren calls.

Jacobi turns to him with that stupid, stupid smile. The white light washes him out, makes him look flat and shiny, like the Goddard phones they sell to civilians. "Yes, sir?" It's wrong, all wrong.

"Come over here. Sit by me."

"I have to tighten this sheet," Jacobi chirps. "Pryce told me to."

"Sit by me. I'll only take a minute of your time." Warren keeps his affable tone. If Jacobi was home, he'd recognize the rage in it.

"My pleasure, sir!" Jacobi places the wrench down with a careful clatter. He comes over, agonizingly slow, letting Warren see every detail, every little untreated injury and bruise. He settles down beside Warren, back ramrod straight. He's shaking. He's shaking so badly, but he doesn't stop smiling.

Warren straightens as well to match him and gets up, beginning to inspect Jacobi for anything particularly worrying. "How are you holding up?"

"My physical state is fine, sir. I can work indefinitely. Pryce gave that to me, and I'm so thankful."

"And." Warren looks back over at the other workers. Eiffel, Minkowski. They keep working. "Do you feel bad?"

"No, sir. Why would I?"

"You've got lots of things to feel bad about, Mister Jacobi. If I were in charge of this ship, you'd be heading to the medbay on a stretcher with the state you're in. There are aliens. Cutter is here. You're being controlled." Warren pauses. "And Alana is dead." Normally he would call her Maxwell, but it’s not like Jacobi’s going to call her by her first name, and it feels important that someone does. 

"None of that matters anymore. Everything is fine. Everything is going to be fine."

Warren looks at him. He's smiling still. For a moment that smile looks so uncanny it's inhuman, his eyes stretched so wide and red and unblinking. Corpse eyes. Warren feels a lump rise in his throat. Then he shakes it off and files it away for later. Not the time.

"What did I do wrong?"

"Sir?" He doesn't falter. He doesn't understand.

"I told them that you were competent. I told them that you were _trustworthy,_ and they still did this to you." Yes, Jacobi was loud and sarcastic, but that never compromised the mission — yes, he mutinied once, but that had been rational, mostly. He could handle himself. And he was the best ballistics specialist in the world, literally. Warren checked.

Was he just too annoying for Pryce? Did Young encourage them, find some perverse joy in the knowledge that this would upset Warren? Jacobi was _his_ operative. Cutter _knew_ that. _Everyone_ knew that. Jacobi, Maxwell, and Kepler. The SI-5 dream team, getting it done in style. It wasn't a secret, even if it wasn't formalized, that they went together like rare steak and a fine red wine. That they came as a trio—take one, take them all.

Jacobi's lips stretch wider and wider across his teeth. A chapped part of skin cracks and starts to bleed. "You didn't do anything wrong, sir. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me."

Now they're fucking with him. Punishing him through Jacobi. Warren's almost certain that when Pryce rips Jacobi's brain stem out he'll be forced to watch it happen, as some kind of perverse punishment. Or maybe he won't be notified at all, will just wake up one day and Jacobi will be gone but still walking around. He's not sure which is worse.

He's been silent for a while now. _Snap out of it, Warren._

"You're bleeding, Jacobi."

Jacobi notices the blood, wipes it away mechanically. "Sorry, sir." 

"Don't be sorry, be—" Warren starts, then pauses, sighs. "It's not your fault. You haven't had anything to drink in fifteen hours."

Jacobi doesn't really have a programmed answer to that, so he just sits and stares and smiles.

Then again, Warren tends to feel things in reverse. More so now than before, because he got his shit wrecked and can't keep it together—useless, idiotic—but regardless, when Jacobi's gone, he won't feel much. He'll say to himself, what's done is done. The SI-5 dream team? It was good while it lasted, and now it's gone. He has his career to advance—or, well, hopefully he will, if the debriefing goes well. Pryce has her little dolls, until they become inconvenient. And Wolf 359 has long consumed Maxwell. 

What was it that Alfred Hitchcock said? It was about shock lasting a moment but a simple warning transforming it into a suspense that lingers. In that same way, his grief—if one could call that dull irritated ache real grief—echoes backwards from the moment Jacobi dies. When it really happens, he will feel briefly disappointed, the ache will stop, and then he will finally feel nothing.

Jacobi's empty smiling eyes bore into him. "Can I get back to work now?"

"Stop smiling," Warren snaps.

He stops smiling, looks at Warren, still blank but more serious. "Sir," he says, in a tone that's so, so close to Jacobi's actual voice. "Are you alright?"

Warren finds his throat suddenly dry. Jacobi's eyes dig into him, blank and unseeing. "I," he manages.

"Oh." Jacobi frowns. Warren notices for the first time how soft his voice is. He wonders if Pryce did that or if it’s just a side effect of getting rid of suffering.

Then Jacobi brightens. His smile returns. Somehow it's more hideous than before. "Everything is okay, sir," he coos, monstrously sycophantic. "Everything is going to be okay. Don't worry. I feel better than I've felt in years."

Yeah, since the incident that brought him to Goddard. Warren knows about the psychosomatic pain, the depression. He knows it all. Maybe he should be happy for Jacobi. That's all gone now after all. But—no, no. The real Jacobi would rather have it back.

"Sir?" Jacobi smiles and smiles and smiles and smiles and—

"Stop that."

The smile drops. "I'll do better, sir."

Warren opens his mouth to speak, but he has nothing to say. "No, it's fine," he hears from his own mouth. Jacobi smiles again.

What is he going to do when they 'upgrade' them? He'd tried already to convince them that he was useful uncollared, and it didn't work. There was no other choice but escape, but they would kill him if they found out. There had to be some kind of place where they could hide and run, so when Pryce started ripping out spinal cords she'd stay the hell away from his operative. But—Warren knows the station and there are no places that Pryce doesn't know. Not that he knows, anyway. Or he could stay and watch it happen, but—could he? Maxwell, he could handle. Jacobi... well, he could handle that too, in the end. But it would be such a goddamn waste.

"Oh," Jacobi says, softly, slowly, "sir, are you still sad about Doctor Maxwell?"

Warren shakes his head, chuckles. "No. Are you? Can you be, anymore? Did they take that from you too?"

"I don't feel bad about Doctor Maxwell anymore. Wouldn't that be nice for you too? Would you like a collar program, sir? Wouldn't that be nice for you?"

"No," he grits out. "It would not. Be nice. For me. And I'm not sad. It's just a waste, that's all."

"Everything is going to be okay, sir."

That's a familiar line, somehow. Maybe Jacobi said it on a mission once. _Everything is going to be okay_. Desperately, with fumbling fingers? Or maybe cocky, one hand on a grenade? Or with a smile. A real one.

"I'm sure it will be."

"Sir, it has been ten minutes. Can I get back to work? I want to make Doctor Pryce proud of me." Warren hears the smile in his voice and for a second he wants to fucking strangle him.

He waits a second for the rage to pass. "Jacobi, how long has it been since you ate something?"

"Twenty-five hours, sir."

"Stay here. I'll get you some food."

"But I have to go back to work, sir!"

Warren shakes his head and gets up. "Fine," he says. "You’re right. It was a stupid idea. Just don't break yourself. We wouldn't want Pryce disposing of you. Alright, Jacobi?”

"Okay! Thank you, sir!" And mechanically, without any hint of exhaustion, Jacobi gets up and leaves.

Kepler leaves too, hurries away as quick as he can with movements calculated to look leisurely, heading nowhere in particular, just wherever the drones are not. He doesn't know if Jacobi will survive this. He doesn't know what to do. He has no plan besides rebellion, no dignity besides what scraps he's shredding to survive, but it'll be enough to get them out of here.

It'll have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Man, writing Kepler is insanely hard. I don’t think I got him quite right, but then again he’s in a weird headspace here. At least it was a fun challenge!!
> 
> While writing this i realized that Kepler and Jacobi’s middle names (James and Kenneth respectively) start with the same letter as the other’s surname???? Hmmmmmm 
> 
> Comments make me very happy :)


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